Why Boosting Your Mitochondrial Function Is the Key To Living a Long and More Vibrant Life
Learn how to get more energy by improving mitochondrial function
Do you ever feel like you're dragging your feet all day long?
Or do you feel like you're following your day-to-day routine but only going through the motions?
Wake up.
Go to work.
Come home.
Go to bed.
Repeat.
Yes, there are things you enjoy. You have family and friends. You even have some fun hobbies, but you feel like you’re trudging through life with a pair of cement boots on.
You're not thriving; you’re surviving. You wish you had more energy.
We all need energy to function in our day-to-day lives.
We need energy to:
move
think
stay warm
stay alive
thrive
We need the energy to connect with the people and the things we love most.
Do you ever look in the mirror only to see someone who's tired and worn out staring back at you?
And what about that one person we all have in our lives – the one who always has a lot of energy? What are they doing differently?
Of course, you’ve heard the saying you are what you eat. And nothing is closer to the truth. What you eat and drink is absorbed by our cells. Within nearly all human cells are mitochondria. Mitochondria are the powerhouse of your cells. It converts what you eat and drink into the energy you need – to move, stay warm, and eliminate toxins.
Mitochondria play a key role in how you age and your risk of developing chronic diseases.
Let’s explore the vital role mitochondria play in our health and learn how you can get more energy.
What Is the Function of Mitochondria?
Mitochondria Produce Energy
Mitochondria are found in most cells of the body. They play a critical role in how you function. They break down carbohydrates, protein, and fat from the food you eat to generate energy. This process is known as oxidative phosphorylation.(1) This process converts the food we eat into adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
ATP is the primary energy source used to help your body grow, move, and achieve homeostasis. Homeostasis balances the chemicals within your body to create stability.(2)
Most of the ATP generated by mitochondria each day is found inside your muscles, brain, liver, heart, and gastrointestinal tract.
Mitochondria Play a Role in Cell Maintenance and Death
The health of your mitochondria plays a role in mitigating chronic diseases and cancer. Mitochondria release proteins to activate enzymes needed to break down unwanted cellular debris, organelles, or dead cells. This process is called autophagy (mitophagy) or “self-devouring”.(3)
Autophagy is important for maintaining homeostasis. As we age our mitochondrial function decreases and signs of aging and chronic disease can set in.
Mitochondria Store and Regulate Calcium
Mitochondria closely regulate calcium throughout the body. Calcium is critically important in the function of your nerve cells, hormones, muscles, reproduction, and clotting of your blood.
Mitochondria Generate Heat
One of the ways your body produces heat is by increasing the brown fat in your body. Brown fat is at its highest levels when you're an infant and slowly decreases as you age. By stimulating the browning of fat in your body through cold exposure, you increase the mitochondria in your cells and produce more energy.(4)
A breakdown of mitochondria in the body leads to the loss of ATP affecting how you age and the likelihood of developing chronic diseases.
Aging and Mitochondria
Most age-related diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases, have mitochondrial involvement. Mitochondrial diseases caused by genetic mutations passed from one family member to another are often severe and very rare.
Most metabolic diseases and mitochondrial dysfunction are often more subtle in nature. It's mostly seen in chronic metabolic diseases including:
Obesity
Type 2 diabetes
Neurodegenerative diseases include:
Alzheimer’s type dementia
Parkinson’s disease
Multiple sclerosis
Lupus
Other autoimmune diseases(5)
Mitochondria are sensitive to environmental factors and toxins characterized by oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress is an imbalance of too many reactive oxygen species (ROS) causing damage to lipids, proteins, DNA, and antioxidants. Antioxidants help the body repair itself from the damage of oxidative stress. But when antioxidants are outnumbered by ROS, your cells – including mitochondria – start to break down.(6)
Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress are closely linked to aging, cancer, and age-related neurodegenerative disease.(7)
The exciting news is a significant amount of progress has been made in understanding the role of mitochondrial function as it relates to disease.
This has allowed scientists and healthcare providers to develop therapeutic strategies to support your cellular powerhouse.
Ways to Boost Mitochondrial Function
Mitochondrial function is a key component of how your cells, tissues, and your whole body function. It's vital to living a long and vibrant life.
What’s even more exciting is that mitochondria can be repaired. How you take care of your body directly impacts your health and even prevents age-related diseases and cancers, a term called epigenetics.(8)
Here are ways you can improve your mitochondrial health.
Exercise
Exercise remains one of the most powerful ways to improve mitochondrial health. Exercise impacts the whole body and is useful in treating many metabolic diseases.(9)
Mitochondrial dysfunction often results in the shrinking of skeletal muscle. That’s why exercise is a powerful tool for improving mitochondrial health and other systems of the body.
Exercise is medicine.(10)
Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting
The Ketogenic Diet forces cells to change their energy source. It uses high fat, moderate protein, and low carbohydrates to help mitochondria convert what you eat and drink into energy.(11) Compared to glycolysis which breaks down sugar and enzymes to produce energy and has been linked to cancer.(12)
A Ketogenic Diet mimics the metabolic state of starvation and forces the body to use fat as its primary source of energy.
Although fat can be used as fuel, the Ketogenic Diet is not without side effects.
The Ketogenic Diet can cause symptoms such as:
Headaches
Dizziness
Fatigue
Nausea
Constipation
This can be a result of dehydration and electrolyte imbalances.
Other problems can arise including nutritional deficiencies, blood sugar imbalances, and gut dysbiosis from lack of fiber.
What's even more concerning is The Ketogenic Diet can burden your kidneys and lead to ketoacidosis – often a medical emergency.
Because of its risks, you should consult a functional medicine doctor and undergo a micronutrient evaluation and organic acid testing to determine if this is the best approach for you.
Intermittent fasting is a great way to boost your mitochondrial function. Intermittent fasting increases your time without food from the typical 12 hours to 14-16 hours.
Supplements
Natural supplements may aid in treating mitochondrial function, fatigue, and chronic illness. Under the supervision of a healthcare provider supplements can be safe and effective to reduce fatigue.
Supplements that support your mitochondria include:
Membrane phospholipids
CoQ10
Microencapsulated NADH or NAD+ injections
L-carnitine
Alpha-lipoic acid
Other nutrients including vitamin D, other vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants help decrease the body's free radicals to support mitochondrial function.(13)
Cold Exposure
Cold exposure helps improve mitochondrial function by increasing mitochondrial biogenesis. Mitochondrial biogenesis stimulates the body in producing more mitochondria and more energy.(14)
Exposing your body to cold temperatures stimulates white adipose tissue (WAT) to undergo browning and generates more heat. When the WAT is exposed to cold it acts more like brown adipose tissue (BAT) increasing the number of mitochondria and energy produced in the body.(15)
Red Light Therapy
Photobiomodulation (PBM) uses red or near-infrared (NIR) light to decrease pain, inflammation, and edema to repair damaged tissues including wounds, bones, and tendons. In mammals, the primary site of NIR light absorption is the mitochondria.
PBM can help restore damaged mitochondria and prevent cell death. This makes it a powerful tool in the treatment of fatigue and age-related diseases.(16)
Environmental Toxins
An important function of mitochondria is to maintain cellular homeostasis under physiological and environmental stress. Chronic exposure to environmental toxins – including heavy metals and other chemicals – can have a harmful effect on humans and decrease mitochondrial function.(17)
Acupuncture
Acupuncture can be an effective modality to help boost mitochondrial function and support you as you age.
A 2018 study used acupuncture to help decrease inflammation in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is located in the brain. It allows the right and left hemispheres of the brain to communicate with one another.
This finding suggests that acupuncture may be an effective tool in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease by regulating the proteins of the mitochondria in the hippocampus.
Using specific acupuncture points, acupuncture can reduce the inflammation that leads to the build-up of plaque commonly seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.(18)
Other studies have shown acupuncture to be effective in supporting liver function.
By reducing inflammation and improving the mitochondria’s ability to break down unhealthy cells acupuncture helps your body get rid of toxins and can help prevent liver failure.(19)
Not only can acupuncture help prevent and treat diseases commonly seen with aging, but it can also improve athletic performance.
Acupuncture can boost the number of mitochondria found in the body to:
Increase your energy
Reduce inflammation
Prevent damage from overworked muscles
Support recovery following exercise(20)
Acupuncture is a powerful way to boost mitochondrial function to help you as you age.
You are an energetic being.
The health of your cells and their ability to produce energy directly relates to how you function and how you age.
The loss of your body's ability to produce energy puts you at risk of developing age-related diseases and cancers.
Being intentional in what you eat and drink, how you exercise, and the use of other therapies helps support your body's energy production. It helps you age more vibrantly.
Support Your Long-term Health by Improving Mitochondrial Function
Your body's ability to produce energy is vital to your health. It's a complex process and is easily influenced by your environment and how you care for your body.
It's easy to be overwhelmed. The amount of information available to you and knowing where to start can be confusing. Especially when it comes to our health.
At Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine, we use a functional medicine treatment approach.
Dr. Martina Sturm partners with you to unveil your own unique pattern of disease. Using science-backed laboratory testing she treats the root cause of your symptoms.
She works with you to improve your nutrition and make small shifts in your lifestyle to optimize your health.
Dr. Martina will help you boost your mitochondrial function so you have the energy to live a vibrant life at any age.
Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine offers in-person and telemedicine consultations. To get started, request a free consultation today.
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